


Specialist Samantha Traynor Saves the Day (Tali’Zorah Also Helps)

by Liara_90



Series: #Traynorweek2017 [3]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Challenge Response, F/F, Light-Hearted, POV Third Person, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 23:23:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13018389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: Samantha Traynor proves that not all heroes carry shotguns. (Though many do).Written for the #Traynorweek2017 Day 4 Prompt - Friendships.





	1. Chapter 1

“ _Keelah se'lai_.”

“Kee- _lah_ se’LIE,” Tali corrected, two gracile fingers twirling a pawn as she spoke.

“That’s what I said,” Sam replied, a little indignantly. “ _Keelah_.”

“Good.”

“ _Se'lai_.”

“Right.”

“ _Keelah se'lai_.”

Tali shook her head, setting the rook down. “You sound as if you’ve been punched in the lip when you say it like that.”

Sam scowled. “And _you_ are sounding like a proper _lush_ , Tali’Zorah vas Normandy,” she retorted, tartly, as Tali’s fingers moved from a bishop to a straw. “I have half a mind to think you’re just having a laugh at my expense.”

Tali rolled her eyes - at least, her body language _strongly suggested_ she had - setting her vibrant drink down on the table with a dull _clunk_. The Quarian language _shouldn’t_ have been that hard to learn, Sam kept telling herself. Human and Quarian mouths were morphologically close enough that no species’ phonemes should’ve been out of the reach of the other’s. Not so with any of the salarian dialects - whose mouths were too wide and lipless - nor turian, which required flanging effects the human throat couldn’t mimic. The grammar wasn’t even all that complex, standardized and homogenized over three centuries on the Flotilla, not compared to tonal Mandarin or Arabic’s ululation or the click consonants of Xhosa.

“ _Keelah se'lai_.”

Tali sighed. “No,” she lamented, moving a piece on the board. “And you’re’re in check.”

Sam grunted, quickly advancing a knight to block the obvious line of attack. “Your move,” Sam replied, “if you can set your drink down long enough to make it.”

Tali made an indistinct hand gesture that Sam secretly suspected was the Quarian version of the middle finger. Tali took one last, noisy slurp through her emergency induction port, before lacing her fingers in front of her face, surveying the boxen battlefield.

They’d found the place completely by accident, by _serendipity_ , as Tali had proudly proclaimed. She was working on improving her fluency of Standard English, as she’d informed Traynor, because even the fastest translator still needed a second or two. Garrus had done much the same thing, Sam knew from the comm-chatter - or at least, he’d picked up the battlefield jargon any Systems Alliance Marine would know. Tali was obviously going a bit beyond that.

The two women had dove deep into the bowels of the Wards, looking for an obscure gamma sensor that had been made by a salarian company that had gone bankrupt a decade ago. The sensor was that rare piece of hardware both women had a professional interest in - it kept tabs on the drive core _and_ could talk to a dozen of the _Normandy_ ’s sub-systems. When Sam’s listserv had informed her that one had been spotted at boutique hardware shop in the Citadel Wards, the two women had taken it as an excuse to spend some time together.

“ _Oh, I get it, you two women want to go shopping,”_ Garrus had teased, as they’d disembarked from the _Normandy_. (Tali had responded with what could _diplomatically_ be phrased as a tongue-lashing of epic proportions.)

Their quest had been a bust - the merchant had apparently never had the product, only a second-rate competitor’s knock-off - but the outing had been enjoyable all the same. They spent an hour or two just talking freely - about the _Normandy_ , about Shepard, about quantum entanglement and krogran politics. About _the usual_.

Sam actually found she had a lot more in common with Tali than she’d initially thought. Not that she was a badass combat engineer with a compromised immune system, of course not, but they were both intelligent, geeky women with a zeal for all things tech. Sam’s academic background was a bit more _theoretical_ than Tali’s - quantum physics, software, mathematical theorems - while the Quarian had a pragmatic bias towards hardware and experimental physics. But neither Shepard nor Garrus were the type of _significant other_ you talked buckyballs with...

“ _Speaking of_ Shepard,” Tali said, tapping something on her omni-tool to order another round of drinks. “Did our Fearless Commander tell you where she and Garrus were heading off to today?”

Sam shook her head. “Can’t say that she has,” she confessed. “Only that she said it was a _personal_ issue.”

“That’s what _Vakarian_ said, too,” growled Tali, leaning back as an asari waitress replaced their glasses. “The kind of _personal_ issue that needs full armor and a sniper rifle, of course.”

“ _Of course_ ,” Sam agreed, smiling slightly as she watched Tali fiddle with her ~~straw~~ emergency induction port. “Off having gallivanting adventures of their own.”

Tali laughed a little in her helmet. “ _Jealous_ , Traynor?”

Sam blinked, recoiling slightly. “Of _Garrus_? God, no.” She exhaled loudly, before taking a sip of her sour drink. “I mean, do I wish that I could do _more_ to keep the Commander safe, instead of just routing comms traffic? Yes, I suppose,” she confessed with a shrug. “But when the Commander is putting together an away team I’m not _green with envy_ that it’s you loonies who get to go.”

Tali chuckled a little more. “Poor Samantha Traynor. Stuck in the CIC while all the aliens get to play with Shepard.”

Sam stuck her tongue out. “Keep it up, vas Normandy, and you’ll have nothing but elcor opera in your earpiece. On _every_ frequency.”

Tali recoiled in mock horror. “You _wouldn’t_.”

“I have the entirety of the Sereuun Opera Company’s tour of Earth. Unedited. _Also_ ,” Sam swept a bishop backward. “ _Checkmate_.”

Tali coughed on her drink a bit as she stared in disbelief at the board before her. To her credit, the Quarian played _exceptionally_ well for someone who had learned the rules mere days ago, but Sam had literally thousands of ranked games beneath her belt.

“ _Bah_ ,” Tali grumbled, flicking over her King with a spindly finger. “Well-played, Traynor.”

“Thank you,” replied Sam, with a gracious bow of her head. “It’s as close to battlefield glory as I’m ever going to get, unlike you.”

Tali shrugged, reclining in her seat, drink in hand. “Not all heroes carry shotguns, you know,” she mused sagely, stirring her drink with her straw.

And, just on cue, their heads turned in unison as they heard one someone shouting, and another someone crying.

“I said _beat it_ you little vagrant _shit_ ,” yelled the proprietor of a nearby cafe, a thoroughly-scarred turian woman with a rolled-up magazine in her hand. “Go back to your camp!”

Sam was on her feet without thinking, hurrying to get between the turian and the source of her ire. Which appeared to be a six-year old human boy with frayed clothes and a runny nose.

“ _Whoa_ whoa whoa whoa,” Sam half-shouted, half-pleaded, grabbing the boy’s hand and tugging him out of swatting distance. “There’s _no need_ for that.”

The turian scoffed at the intervention, but she took a few steps back. Sam’s Alliance uniform always conveyed a bit more authority than she remembered. “Listen, lady, I know the kid’s human, but these rats keep slipping out of the refugee camp. Driving away paying customers.”

Tali took that as her cue to join the conversation. “ _Oh_ , so just because he’s poor and homeless, it’s okay for you to treat him like vermin. _Bosh'tet_ ,” she spat.

“Listen, _Quarian_ , I get how you can relate to this bit of space trash-”

“-I have a _shotgun_ and I have been _drinking_!” Tali interrupted, gesturing with the glass still in her hand for emphasis.

“That’s _quite_ enough, we’ll be on our way,” Sam said, to everyone within earshot, grabbing Tali’s hand and dragging her off, too.

Tali tugged herself free when they were out of earshot. “I wasn’t _actually_ going to shoot her, Traynor,” Tali clarified, setting her drink down on the sidewalk. The young boy clutching Sam’s hand stared as if in terror at the luminous dots of the Quarian’s eyes.

“I know,” Sam appended, crouching down to come eye-level with the boy. “But what about _you_? Are you from the refugee camp on Level 317?” The boy didn’t say anything - too preoccupied with chewing on his sleeve, apparently - but he nodded clearly enough. “Alright. Well, there’s a lift that’ll take us right there. Are your parents with you?”

The boy remained mute, just wiping the snot from his nose with his free hand.

“I am _so_ glad I have my suit right now,” Tali muttered.

“Don’t be rude,” Sam chided, as the trio made their way to the nearest elevator.

“What? Alien children are mobile germ factories,” replied Tali, defensively. “It’s like watching someone fawn over a biological weapon.” Sam rolled her eyes and tapped a button on the lift, chalking Tali’s crassness up to the effects of ethanol on her biology.

They made it to Level 317 without incident, though Sam’s attempts to get a few more words from the boy remained fruitless. She was hardly an expert in child psychology, but it wouldn’t have surprised her in the slightest to learn that he was suffering from a sort of PTSD. It was tragic, but in these times, it was hardly unusual.

They found the camp quickly enough, an open-air plaza that had been hastily filled with prefab shelters and a temporarily sewage line. The camp’s inhabitants were all human, as far as Sam could see, quite possibly from the same world, too…

“ _Jonah_!”

Sam blinked in surprise as she saw two people running towards her, a man and a woman, both in their thirties, wearing the kind of all-weather clothes preferred by those without a bed of their own. The woman snatched the boy straight out of Sam’s hand, clutching him tightly to her chest.

“What are you doing with our son?” the man asked, so accusatorily that Sam and Tali both stepped back in surprise.

“Marcus, _please_.” The woman turned to face Sam. “We’ve just been so nervous. We got separated at Tiptree and we only just found our boy again. When Jonah wandered off an hour ago we were so scared we’d never find him again.”

“No problem at all, ma’am,” Sam replied, in her crispest tone. “He was just one level up.”

‘Marcus’ looked slightly abashed at his earlier outburst, clearing his throat with a cough. “Uh, my apologies, Miss…”

“Traynor,” Sam answered, accepting a proferrer handshake. “Specialist Samantha Traynor, SSV _Normandy_.” She turned. “And this is Tali’Zorah vas Normandy.”

Tali flashed an awkward, three-fingered wave when it became apparent that no handshake would be forthcoming.

“Well, we can’t thank you enough for bring our baby boy back,” said the woman. “ _God Bless_.”

And with that they were off, hurrying Jonah into one of the hundreds of identical prefabs.

“ _See_ ,” said Tali, gently slapping Samantha’s bicep. “Heroism: no shotgun required.”

Sam smiled. “It’s all about picking your battles, vas Normandy,” she agreed, before turning her back to return to the elevator. “His parents seemed nice. Lucky to have the two of them, in these days.”

“ _Hmm_ ,” Tali _hummed_ , in vague affirmation. “I wonder if one of them’s new to the family.”

An eyebrow on Sam’s brow was arched. “What do you mean?”

Tali tilted her head. “Oh, just they looked a little… _disparate_?” she said, trying the last word in English.

“How so?”

“Just the clothing,” Tali said, almost musing to herself. “ _Jonah_ was wearing the clothes the Alliance gives to the refugees it relocates. Waterproof, all-weather fabrics. We have some in the _Normandy_ ’s hold, you know.”

Sam said nothing, letting her feet carry her, unthinkingly. “The _mother’s_ clothes fit really badly, you know, because they came from an asari manufacturer. The same manufacturer that’s providing clothes to new refugees on the Citadel. While _Marcus_ looked like he just stepped off a shuttle from Terra Nova.”

“How…” Sam struggled to find the words. “...I didn’t take you for such a _fashionista_ , Tali.” They made their way to a lift, and Sam thumbed a button to take them back to the docks.

The Quarian tapped her faceplate, as opaque as ever. “Traynor, my people distinguish themselves almost _entirely_ based on their suit designs. I grew up only being able to tell half my family apart by their ‘ _fashion_ ’.” She shrugged. “It carries over to aliens, too. I’m _terrible_ with faces, but I can identify half the _Normandy_ crew just by their shoes.”

And then Tali smacked her head. “ _Keelah_ , having conversations about Quarian culture in an elevator on the Citadel. I’m having flashbacks to 2183.”

Sam shot Tali a curious look, but her companion steadfastly refused to elaborate.

“I wonder where he _was_ from,” Sam mused, as the elevator slowly climbed through the Citadel’s spires. “EDI?”

“Yes, Specialist Traynor?” The voice of the _Normandy_ ’s resident AI was piped through her omni-tool almost instantaneously.

“Settle a question for us. We just found a refugee at the camp in the Wards, Level 317. First name _Jonah_ , Caucasian male seven or eight years old. Dad’s name is _Marcus_ , I assume with a _Charlie_. Where’d he come from?”

“ _Searching_.” And in those milliseconds EDI’s mind tore through terabytes of database records in a dozen Alliance information banks, sifting census data, resettlement records, and Citadel Traffic Control logs.

EDI chirped in the _negative_ a second later. “I have no record of any refugee resettled on the Citadel who matches your parameters.”

“Closest match?” Sam asked.

“ _Jonah Hovland_ , a nine-year old male from Norway, Earth.” A holograph flashed from Sam’s omni-tool, displaying a three-dimensional portrait of the boy they’d just ushered home. “He was evacuated to the Citadel aboard the SSV _Kiel_ two weeks ago, assigned to resettlement camp 401-B on Level 317. He is the only “ _Jonah_ ” under the age of eighteen who has been resettled on the Citadel since the Reapers struck.”

Sam and Tali exchanged nervous looks. “His parents?”

“Sven and Elizabeth Hovland, both presumed to be killed by the Reaper that hit Oslo.” EDI’s voice softened, slightly. “According to Citadel and Alliance records, Jonah Hovland has no immediate relatives on the Citadel.”

Sam felt her whole body darken. A few months ago, it would have been unthinkable that a human child would be effectively _dumped_ into a refugee camp without so much as a ward to look over him. But every support agency in the galaxy was overextended to the breaking point, and so many children were clearly slipping through the cracks.

“ _EDI_.” Tali addressed the AI a little uneasily, even after their months together. “There’s a prefab structure at the camp. Last four digits of the serial number were -9781.”

“ _Affirmative,_ Miss vas Normandy. Designation and position of structure match Alliance Resettlement Agency records.”

“What is it?”

EDI chirped. “Structure -9781 was designated as a general-purpose housing unit, though I cannot authoritatively confirm that that is what-”

Tali batted away the AI’s words. “No, no… what’s it _above_?”

“Above?” The question slipped past Sam’s lips, unthinkingly.

“According to the last known configuration, Structure -9781 is located above a Keeper maintenance tunnel.” From Sam’s omni-tool, a three-dimensional map blipped into existence. “Apart from a sewage pipeline, the Keeper tunnel also connects to a drinking establishment on Level 316, known as the Errant Glass _._ ”

Sam felt her breaths shortening. Too many things simply _did not feel right_. “And is _the Errant Glass_ an entirely above-board institution, EDI?”

Her omni-tool blinked, and a dozen C-Sec records were projected before her. “ _Negative_ , Specialist. The Errant Glass is suspected by C-Sec to be a front for organized crime. It was the nexus of no fewer than five ongoing criminal investigations.” The screens blinked out. “Due to the Reaper invasion, however, all investigations are currently suspended.”

Sam opened her mouth. “I have a-”


	2. Chapter 2

“- _bad_ feeling about this,” Tali concluded, eyeying the bar’s exterior up and down. She reclined on the bench she and Sam were none-too-discreetly lounging on. “You could just be reading too much into this, Traynor.”

“That’s why I just want to walk in,” Sam explained, wiping sweaty palms on her pants. “Just walk in, grab a quick drink, and put my mind at ease.”

“Traynor,” Tali’s hand was on Sam’s shoulder, “you weren’t there when we hit Chora’s Den, but _believe me_ , these places are more dangerous than you think. And we can’t count on C-Sec to provide backup.”

“ _Nor I_ ,” said EDI, piping her voice into their earpieces. “Security cameras in this section appear to have been systematically disabled by vandals. The bar itself also employs a rudimentary Faraday cage mesh and EM jammers.”

Sam rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Shepard and Garrus?”

“Commander Shepard and Garrus Vakarian are currently engaged at Zakaria Ward,” EDI answered, with such a _wonderfully_ ambiguous use of the phrase ‘ _engaged_ ’. “Would you like me to contact crewmen of the _Normandy_ for assistance?”

“ _Normandy_ ’s a half-hour away by shuttle,” Sam pointed out. “ _Look_ , I’m not going to go in their bloody _guns blazing_. It’s probably nothing, like you said, Tali. Just… let me put my mind at ease. Maybe I’ll run into Jonah’s _parents_ , buy them a drink...”

Tali shook her head in resignation. “I will never understand humans,” she muttered, darkly. “ _Here_.” Tali proffered her pistol and a handheld shielding unit. “The shield unit fits under your omni-tool mount, nobody should notice it.”

“Thanks,” Sam said, hurrying to strap the gizmo to her forearm. She’d used shielding units before - everyone who’d undergone Alliance training had - but the thought of _needing_ to use one still made her nervous. “You can keep the pistol.”

“ _Traynor_.” Tali sounded like a mother whose child was skipping their vegetables.

Sam folded her arms. “If there’s trouble, Tali, I’m not going to be shooting my way out. Besides,” she made a _voila_ gesture with her hands. “Where exactly am I going to hide it?”

Tali grumbled something untranslatable in Quarian, but she holstered her sidearm. “ _Fine_. I’ll save your _bosh’tet_ ass.” She gestured to an alleyway across the street from the Errant Glass. “I’ll be waiting by that dumpster. No way they let me in the bar, but nobody looks twice at a transient Quarian.” She sighed morosely at the prospect of playing into her people’s stereotype.

“I’ll be out in five,” Sam promised.

“If you’re not, can I have your chess set?” Tali asked, darkly.

“Only if I die valiantly.” Sam took a deep breath. “ _Keelah se'lai_ , Tali’Zorah.”

Tali sighed. “Close enough. _Keelah se'lai_.”

* * *

Sam approached the bar without incident, walking through the first of a set of double doors. A turian bouncer eyed her wearily as he scanned her up-and-down with an omni-tool, unknowingly vindicating Sam’s decision to enter unarmed. He waved her in with a grunt.

The interior was, to Sam’s surprise, pretty much what she’d expected. According to EDI’s records, the Errant Glass had initially been built as an asari lounge decades ago, but the owners had sold it to some entrepreneurial Americans, who’d re-styled it into a reasonable approximation of an old Bostonian pub. The patrons were overwhelmingly humans - their builds and outfits screaming “ _thugs_ ” to the stereotyping part of Sam’s mind - though there were also a respectable number of turians and salarians milling about. There was even a solitary volus, taking up a whole booth by himself, scrolling lazily through an omni-tool feed.

Sam made her way to the bar, perching herself on a padded stool with a good view of the pub. She prayed no one could hear how loud her heart was pounding in her chest.

“What’s your poison?” the barmen asked, in a gruff Aussie accent.

“Just a rum and coke, for now,” Sam said, summoning her omni-tool to open a tab.

The barmen batted it away. “On the house,” he said, placing a paper napkin in front of her. “For your service.”

Sam smiled a little weakly at that. She felt _incredibly_ conspicuous in her Alliance duty fatigues - this wasn’t a navy bar, after all - but nobody seemed too fazed by the uniform. That was good.

Her drink was placed in front of her. Sam took the smallest of sips, suppressing a wince as she did. She was _not_ , by inclination, a ‘rum and coke’ kind of girl. She wasn’t much for _anything_ alcoholic, except for the rare glass of wine or a celebratory mimosa. But it’d been the first thing that’d popped into her head (not counting a Strawberry Sunrise, as this didn’t really seem like the place for that.) So here she was with it.

And he hadn’t skimped on the _rum_ part of the formula.

For several minutes she did nothing at all, just stared into her drink, catching snippets of motion and conversation. Nobody seemed to be talking _about_ anything, not like a mob movie, where drug deals were being finalized between dishes. Most people just seemed to be here to _drink_ , which was pretty understandable, given the state of the galaxy.

It was a little more than ten minutes - right around when Sam figured she should stop playing amateur sleuth and assuage Tali’s no-doubt frayed nerves - that she got her one and only clue. And like in those old _Nancy Drew_ novels she’d adored growing up, it had strolled right in front of her eyes.

Rather literally.

It was a child - not Jonah but a boy just like him - stepping out of one back office and walking right across the floor of the bar. That would have been unusual enough - Sam was hardly a regulator, but you usually needed to be the age of your species’ majority to be in these places - made all the more unusual by what he was carrying. No less than six carbines, bundled together with a cord, being carried across his back like an unwieldy knapsack.

Sam couldn’t keep from staring.

“Close your mouth,” a voice beside her warned, “or flies’ll get in.”

It took Sam a second to place the accent - Afrikaners, that awkward mix of English and Dutch - and by the time she did, its speaker had taken the stool next to her. “See something you like, miss?”

Sam blinked. “Those are M-55 Argus assault rifles,” she blurted out, almost unthinkingly. “CQB-modified stocks and grips.” (Sam was hardly a gun nut, but she _was_ dating Shepard, and you picked up a few things by osmosis on the _Normandy_ ).

“Good eye you ‘ave,” the man said, as Sam watched the boy vanish into another room. “Lookin’ to buy or sell?”

She spent a _long_ minute clearing her throat. “Excuse me?”

“Buyin’ or sellin’. Guns, I mean,” the man repeated easily, as if she’d misheard an IP address number.

“Oh. Um, buying.”

( _What_ exactly _do you think you’re getting yourself into, Sam?_ )

The man winced a little at that. “Fair _e_ nough. Though we’re always lookin’ for more suppliers, if you know anyone who’s interested.”

“No, sorry.” With the faintest twitch of her thumb and forefinger, Sam’s omni-tool began silently recording _everything_.

“No worries, miss. Just that we get a lot of Alliance types through ‘ere, you know. With a bit of ‘ _misplaced inventory_ ’.” He chuckled. “The Reapers are gonna kill us all, but _until then_ , lemme tell you that they’re _great_ for business.”

Sam felt droplets of sweat trickling down the back of her neck. It was difficult to gauge whether the man before her was a bit unhinged or just positively fatalistic. He certainly didn’t seem worried that he might spent twenty years in a cell.

“Lemme guess: you’re a _woman scorned_? Your man back at home found some azure while you out serving?” Sam swallowed. “Weird, isn’t it, Reapers are gonna kill us all but there are some things we have to do _personally_. Right?”

“Um, something like that,” Sam murmured, unconvincingly. “So, um… what _do_ you have?” she asked, as if inquiring about the soup of the day.

“Alliance surplus, mostly, like I said,” the man replied. Sam mentally dubbed him _Scruffy_ , courtesy of his questionable facial hair. “Mix of pistols and rifles. A few things more exotic, but if you’re on an Alliance paycheck then let’s not waste our time.”

“Of course.” Sam’s stool _squeaked_ with her shifting wait. “Just, um, a pistol, I suppose. Nothing flashy.”

“Sensible woman,” Scruffy said, approvingly. “M-3 Predator work alright? I’m assuming you’ve used them before, and my stock is almost factory-new.”

Sam nodded. “Sounds wonderful.”

( _Wonderful. Like a bouquet_.)

But Scruffy made no note of her curious word choice, just tapping a few buttons on his omni-tool. “And where do you want it delivered?”

“Delivered?”

For the first time, Scruffy looked at her, a little suspiciously. “Unless you want to walk into the nearest C-Sec checkpoint, miss. That’s what the premium’s for.” He gestured to another boy crossing the bar, although that one was empty-handed. “ _Duct rats_. We can deliver anywhere on this arm of the Citadel within twenty-four hours, guaranteed. _Well_ ,” he craned his neck, “unless the Keepers re-arrange things and the duct rat bites it. In that case, you’re 100% reimbursed with in-store credit.”

“Oh. Um, yes, I’ll need it delivered. Can you send it to Docking Bay D24?”

Scruffy let out a _humf_. “Can and have, miss. One of the duct rats will leave it in an unlocked at vent, ah, one moment.” He quickly skimmed a messy text document on his omni-tool. “Vent West-19A. It’ll be in a box magnetic-locked to the ceiling, code to open is 0-0-0-0.” He chuckled. “Not a secure passcode, I’m aware, but we’re really just keeping the Keepers off it.” He tapped up a final bill. “And that’ll be 4,300 credits, miss. I’m afraid we had to cancel our payment plan, in light of the looming Armageddon.”

( _Yes,_ definitely _insane._ )

Sam’s stomach clenched, both at the sheer terror of buying a black market gun and at the horror of all-but-emptying her savings account. And she doubted Alliance Accounting would be in a hurry to reimburse her.

Scruffy smiled as he saw the revised balane in his own account. “Well, pleasure doing business with you, Miss…”

Sam panicked. “Laws...less. Lawless. Miranda Lawless.”

( _Oh, Sam, he_ absolutely _bought that. Miranda Lawless. Name fits you like a glove.)_

“Right. Well, Lawless, just remember Vent W-19A, no more than a standard day from now. Hope you enjoy it before the Reapers make grey goo us all.”

“Thank. I will!” Sam replied, with forced cheeriness.

She wanted to throw up, except her stomach was so impossibly tight, and her muscles were shaking and-

( _One foot in from of the other, Sam. Just think of the recording. Get out, ping EDI, ping C-Sec, think of Shepard and a hot shower and-)_

Sam slammed into a man right as she was exiting the bar.

“Oh, um, _Marcus_ , sir,” Sam stammered, immediately recognizing the couple before her. “What a coincidence. Running into you twice in one day.”

“ _Yes_ …” Marcus answered, cautiously. “Isn’t it, Miss Taylor.”

“ _Tray_ nor,” Marcus’ partner corrected, slapping him on the arm. The woman smiled. “I’m sorry about him. Again. And we really can’t thank you enough for rescuing Jonah. He hasn’t stopped talking about you, you know.”

“Oh, well, _all in a day’s work_ , ma’am,” Sam replied.

“ _Ex_ cuse me,” Scruffy called out, from his perch by the bar. “Did you say that, ah - _Traynor_ , was it? - this woman found Jonah?”

“Yes. Running about on the level up. Brought him right back to the camp,” Marcus answered, his voice almost aggressively neutral.  
  
  


“ _Right_. Sorry, Miss Traynor? Lawless? I just was ‘oping you could clarify what _exactly_ -”

The outer door swung open, providing Sam with a clear tunnel to the outside world. “ _Tali now!_ ”

“ _Chatika, go for the eyes_!”

Sam dove to the floor as the room around her exploded in light and sound, Tali’s combat drone drawing every eye (and gun) to it. Tali’Zorah herself burst through the double-doors a second later, shields primed and shotgun ready. Before Sam could so much as blink twice Tali had fired square into Scruffy’s chest, dropping him instantly.

Sam had just enough time to power up her own emergency shields as the firefight exploded all around her. Shots splintered the floor and the table near her, richotets _pinging_ off her shield. Forcing her eyes _open_ , Sam summoned the cyberwarfare suite on her omni-tool, executing a half-dozen all-purpose information malware algorithms to wreak bloody havoc on her adversaries.

The main lights went out immediately, though the offline, unhackable backups flickered to life in a second. Every civilian omni-tool and comlink would be rendered inoperable, and those shield systems with known cyber-vulnerabilities were quickly deactivated. Two men grabbed their heads as radio earpieces began pumping high-frequency static into their aural canals, while the holographic sights of an approaching rifleman became _impossibly_ uncalibrated.

A round bounced off her shield, dropping its strength a precious few percentage points. Sam swore and tucked her feet in. From her angle beneath the overturned table, she could make out Tali’Zorah making swift work of the thugs in the bar. This was a woman who’d gone toe-to-toe with Saren Arterius himself, to say nothing of the countless geth, collectors, and assorted abominations of the past two years.

In a bar full of complete amateurs, she might as well have been shooting fish in a barrel.

Tali’s shotgun rung out a regular intervals, like a Swiss watch of death, spinning and rolling, using her drones to preoccupy those not in her sights. Sam, in her idle moments, had sometimes thought that she was kind of like Tali. They were both awkward, shy, geeky girls, after all, _right?_

Seeing Tali in action disabused Sam of those notions pretty thoroughly. The part of Tali’s brain that excelled at visualizing three-dimensional spaces and calculating vectors could just as well be put to work carving up a battlefield. Tali was as bloody deadly as anyone else on Shepard’s squad, and this was her way of reminding Traynor.

Sam was distracted from the rhythmic shotgun blasts by a flash of light, a door to the side being swung open. It was only open for a second, but in that moment Sam saw everything she needed to.

A room full of children, and someone holding a grenade.

_What the bloody_ fuck _are they..._

_...Samantha Traynor if they_ die _because you wanted to play detective-_

She was sprinting towards the back door before she could so much as _think_ about being scared by the bullets. Sam heard her name being called out, distantly, Tali spinning in confusion as she shifted between targets.

“ _Alright, Earth-clanners, into the vents_.” Some part of Sam’s brain distanty processed the wheezing cadence of a suited volus. “ _Let’s not make a mess of this_.”

In her head, Sam shouted: _Get away from those children, you methane-sucking scumbag, drop the grenade, and put your hands in the air!_

In reality, Sam shouted: _Get awaayyyygggghhhhhh_

Like any student who’d taken an elementary science class, Samantha Traynor knew damn well that _F_ = _ma_ , or that Force ( _F_ ) is equal to Mass ( _m_ ) times Acceleration ( _a_ , in meters/second2). Unfortunately, for Samantha Traynor, she could sprint at perhaps 20 kilometers an hour (in an _extremely_ short, adrenaline-fuelled dash), and in Citadel gravity she had a little more than 120 pounds of mass to her frame.

Volus, with their low centers of gravity and atmospherically-sealed hardsuits, could easily weigh in at over four-hundred pounds. And they had _excellent_ footing.

Sam threw herself blindly into the volus. As Newtonian physics would predict, she didn’t have the force to knock him over. But she _was_ able to wrap her arms around his armed one, tugging it _down_ on a fierce diagonal with all her weight.

“ _Traynor!”_

She saw the human children, staring at her in wide-eyed horror. She saw the volus’ stubby hand trying to get a grip on the grenade’s detonator. Saw her hands trying to claw it away. And then she saw her world go black.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam’s eyes opened, and a bright light and a human head filled her vision.

“ _God_?”

( _Oh_ bloody _hell there really_ is _a God and was Pascal’s Wager_ really _so unreasonable Sam that you couldn’t have at least done Christmas and Easter, just for a bit of theological insurance-)_

“Nope. Though I appreciate the brown-nosing, Specialist.”

The head in her vision shifted slightly, suddenly eclipsing the light overhead. A freckled face and emerald green eyes were staring down at her.

“ _Jane_.”

“Easy, Sam, don’t try to move. And before you ask: the kids are all safe.”

Sam swallowed, and her throat felt raw. “How bad… is the damage?”

Shepard blinked. “Damage?”

Sam let out a raspy cough. “The grenade. Tali’s shields...must have saved my life… but what’d they do to...me…”

Shepard glanced over her shoulder, at a figure Samantha couldn’t see. “ _Uhhh_ …” Shepard glanced back at Sam. “What grenade?”

“The one that… crippled me…” Sam’s eyes drifted shut. “Can’t feel my toes, Jane.”

Shepard actually snorted. “There was no grenade, Sam, you just hit your head. Though now I think the strap on the stretcher is cutting into your circulation.”

( _Hey, Sam, who would have guessed that the Halls of Mandos look_ exactly _like the inside of an ambulance?_ )

“Oh. So I’m not… horribly mutilated?” Shepard adjusted a strap by Sam’s feet.

“You’ve got a bump on your head,” Shepard said, leaning forward to kiss the tip of Samantha’s nose. “And before you ask - no lasting brain damage, either. Paramedics gave you an fMRI while you were out, and you’re still at 100%”

“Oh, wonderful,” Sam breathed, an itchiness creeping onto her nose where Shepard’s lips had been. “I’d hate to leave you stuck with only a _fraction_ of my genius.”

“ _That’s_ my comms specialist.” Sam’s eyes were still closed, but she felt Shepard idly brushing her hair. “Care to explain what happened in there, Sam? And I’ve already debriefed Tali and spoke with the C-Sec forensics team, so don’t think you’ll have the chance to get your story straight.”

Sam let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Saw someone who might have been in trouble, Commander. Had to see if I could help.” Sam dared to open an eye, and was able to make out Shepard in the corner of her vision, head bowed, _subdued_. “I have a feeling you know what that’s like.”

Shepard exhaled, loudly. “I see my own terrible example is coming back to bite me,” she grumbled to herself. And then she sighed, and went back to ruffling Sam’s hair. “We’ll talk about your choice of tactics tomorrow. Understood, Specialist?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sam breathed, and let her eyes drift shut again.

She heard Shepard’s heavily-booted feet get up, listened to the Commander rasp her knuckles on the walls of the ambulance.

“Bay B24, on-the-double. Our conquering hero needs her bedrest.”

Sam felt the engines of the ambulance shuttle _whirr_ to life, the smooth acceleration as they began their homeward trek through Citadel skies.

Shepard’s hands combed Sam’s hairs the whole way back.

“ _Keelah se'lai_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As with the other stories in this series, this was written for [#Traynorweek2017](https://traynor-appreciation.tumblr.com/post/168190918376/its-almost-time-to-celebrate-our-favorite-comm), so have some light-hearted action. Do let me know if you enjoyed it, if you didn't and if there's anything I could be doing better. It's the only way I'm ever going to get better.
> 
> Also feel free to contact me on [reddit](https://www.reddit.com/user/pvoberstein/) or [Tumblr](http://www.pvoberstein.tumblr.com/).


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